Reed finally was heard from. “Please, Merri, don’t get into that again. We’re all upset about it, but the immediate problem is Zoe’s safety. Now, I’m inclined to agree it’s some kind of prank. I think Zoe will come waltzing in here with all kinds of excuses and expect us all to laugh with her and compliment her cleverness, and she’ll think I will be convinced to let her go to that damned acting school and—”
The strident buzz of the phone on the buffet froze us all. Merrilou was the first to jump up.
“NO!” I managed to shout. “Reed, you get it. Demand to speak with Zoe, talk as long as you can. We may hear identifiable background noise. Tell them you don’t have a million, or even near it. Ask them for a couple of days to try to get some money pulled together. Tell them you’re trying hard.”
Reed was pushing Merrilou ungraciously aside, grabbing for the phone. I turned to Rob. “Tape recorder? Speaker phone?”
Marvin was already up and running into the living room. Rob motioned me back toward the kitchen, moving at a trot on the slippery tiles.
“Tape recorder’s in the living room, speaker’s in the kitchen.”
He punched a couple of buttons and Reed’s voice came through, with that sort of echo effect speakers lend to any voice.
“... yes, I’m Reed Catlett. Who are you?”
“Right now, I’m Zoe’s watchdog. Arf, arf.” I heard a girlish titter in the background. “And if you want me to keep on being a friendly puppy, you’ll keep that friggin’ comedian who answered the first time, off the phone. And you’ll tell me you’ve got that million all counted out, and I’ll tell you how you are to get it to me. That is if you want Zoe back. Scarlett O’Hara didn’t sound like she much cared one way or the other.”
The voice did sound young, but not childish. The caller could be most any reasonably adult age. I peered back into the dining room. Reed was pale, and his hand that held the phone was shaking, but he hung tough.
“I don’t do business with dogs or in vacuums. We won’t even discuss money till I know my Zoe is okay. Put her on the line.” His voice was flat and businesslike.
“My, my, aren’t we the bossy one. That won’t last long.” The kidnapper turned away from the phone and said something I couldn’t hear. There was what seemed a long silence.
Then a young girl’s voice cried out, “Oh, Daddy! Daddy, come and take me home! They say they’ll kill me if you don’t pay them. Are you there? I feel awful about this. I’m so sorry things didn’t work out.”
Before Reed could say anything comforting to his daughter, there was some sort of scuffle as she was pulled away. The young man returned. “Satisfied, Daddy? Now here’s what we do. You put a million dollars in fifty- and twenty-dollar bills in a couple of the smallest school backpacks you can fit them in. Unmarked bills, by the way. We’re too smart for that trick. Then you bring—”
“Not so fast, sonny.” Reed was getting mad, which was fine as long as he remembered who had Zoe.
“My first clue to your ignorance of what you’re trying to do is that you are not of the business world. Bill Gates may have a million in cash in his house on a Friday morning, but I sincerely doubt it. I tell you right now, I’ve got about three hundred in the house. And I have a little money in the local bank. If I get that and borrow what cash I can today from my friends around here, I’d probably have fifteen thousand. Or a little more. Will that do it for you?”
Our kidnapper sounded shaky. “Never you mind what world I’m in. And fifteen grand ain’t even a down payment on one of Zoe’s ears, which you’ll get if you keep this shit up. I’ll call you Monday at this time. Have the money... all the money!” The connection broke.
We found ourselves back in the dining room, all talking at once. “How did I do?” Reed asked me.
“You did just fine,” I said sincerely. “One small thing, you let him know you picked up on his ignorance of the business world. That’s a clue to who he is and it made him nervous, and you don’t want him any more nervous than he is. Believe me, he’s as scared as you are. You want him to think he’s in complete control—right up to the last minute when the cops snap the cuffs on him. Don’t give him any information. Just try to get what you can out of him. Like is Zoe warm, reasonably fed, healthy? Do they want new bills? The longer you can keep him talking, the more likely you are to learn something.”
I wasn’t giving Reed some information, myself. I’d heard something in Zoe’s plea that I wanted to pursue. But not now. Not with this group.
“Yeah, sorry about that business world slip. It was just so obvious.”
“No great harm. Just be aware when next you speak to him.”
Merrilou’s soft voice came from across the table. “Alex, honey, you did hear how young he sounded and how flip, didn’t you? And that silly giggle. I still think it’s a prank. If Reed had said fifty thousand instead of fifteen, I’ll bet you anything that young man would have taken it.” She leaned against Reed’s back and put her head on his shoulder, her arms around his chest, hands rubbing gently. Reed looked embarrassed and moved away from her.
I answered before she could take him off to bed. “I doubt it. Our watchdog is still thinking of dining on filet mignon. By Monday, we’ll try two hundred thousand, which will buy a lot of T-bones. Depending on how we phrase it, that may work.” Merrilou’s eyes widened, but she made no comment.
“Monday seems so far away,” Marie was teary eyed again. “Poor Zoe sounds just terrified. My God, what do you suppose they’ve done to her?”
“Probably nothing serious. She’s their asset, their only asset until they get the money. That’ll be the time to walk very softly.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing serious’”? Marvin asked. With his round face and unreliable voice, he seemed quite mild. Until you looked at his eyes. Maybe he really would be a Marine.
“Kidnappers like to humiliate their captives.” I took out a cigarette, glad I had remembered to say captive instead of victim. “It makes it easier for the kidnappers to keep them under control if they’re embarrassed and uncomfortable. So they probably took most of her clothes. They may make her eat food right from the can with her fingers. They probably have warned her not to speak unless they tell her to, or maybe won’t let her use the bathroom alone...”
“And you call that ‘nothing serious’? I call that enough to kill the bastards.” Marvin looked ready to kill, and I thought Reed might burst into tears. Rob was bent over, petting Fargo, to cover his own emotion, I assumed. Poor Marie was sobbing outright. Even Merrilou looked distressed.
“Look,” I explained, “it’s just that if they belittle her, they feel bigger. It makes the captive feel powerless. It’s not nice, but it isn’t really harmful. She’ll handle it.” I took a sip of my now-cold coffee, tried not to wince and hoped to God I was right about a seventeen-year-old I had never met.
“Now, Reed, what’s the real story on the money?”
“First, I was lying about the bank. Most of my easily convertible assets are at Fishermen’s Bank. I just didn’t think that punk needed to know that.” I nodded in approval. And he went on.
“The problem will be getting it into cash over a weekend. In four or five days, I could have close to a million. I’m not sure to the exact thousand.”
“Yeah.” I thought it must be nice to have a million, even if it did vary a thousand here, a thousand there. “Anyway, Reed, naturally we would try very hard to settle for a lot less.”
“Why? What difference does it make how much is in the knapsacks, when they’ll only have them for a minute or two?”
“Uh, well, Reed, you’ve elected to go with one lonely private investigator instead an entire police force plus the FBI. There’s only one of me and my only concern will be getting Zoe home in one piece. They may well get clean away with the money. I’ll be in touch. C’mon, Fargo.”
Chapter 4
Rob walked us to the car, so I had the opportunity to ask him about Zoe’s friends. He seemed rather at a loss. “She has a million casual friends, but not many close ones. For all her fun-loving side, she is kind of a private person,” he finally said. “But if it is just some scheme they’ve cooked up, I mean if she isn’t really kidnapped, if anybody will know where she is, it’ll be Dana Portman or Harry Maddock.”
“And just who are they?” I opened the car door and Fargo jumped across into the passenger’s seat, taking no chances of being put in the back. I sat in the driver’s seat and pulled a notebook from the compartment. “Shoot.”
He leaned against the open car door. “Dana is a great girl. Smart, nice and super rich. Her old man imports antiques of all kinds from all over the world. Sells ’em to dealers or museums and then has replicas made in a couple of factories he owns. Talk about a million. He probably keeps that in the cookie jar to tip the paper boy.”
I looked up from my notes. “I’m surprised he’s not in jail.”
“No, no.” Rob laughed. “He doesn’t pass the copies off as the real thing. They’re all clearly marked Portman Reproductions and the date, and the ones I’ve seen have a little booklet with the history of the original. Very classy stuff. They’re very well done and cost a bundle even though they’re reproductions.”
“I see.” I also felt a little foolish. “And Dana is the recipient of all this money?”
“Someday, I guess. She’ll deserve it. Next year she’s off to Yale to study art history, although she already knows as much as most dealers. She’s wants to be a museum curator for a few years and then her dad wants her to go into the family business. She travels a lot with her dad, but I’m not sure she’s all that sold on joining him in the business. I think she wants her independence.”
“Where’s her mom in all this?” I lit a cigarette, and Rob looked at me longingly until I passed him the pack and lighter.
“Living on Spain’s sun coast with—according to Dana—a gorgeous guy about half her age. They may be married, not sure. Dana stays in touch with her, secretly, I think. I don’t believe her old man knows about it.”
“And is Dana Zoe’s lover?”
Rob dropped the cigarette and tapped it into the gravel, as Merrilou walked out onto the large porch and began a careful survey of the potted plants.
“Sorry to waste it. It’s easier than listening to her lecture on the subject later. Anyway, yes, I assume Dana is the girl. They’re always together, make a great pair, actually. Dana is so well-grounded and Zoe is always so ready to sail away in a beautiful pea-green boat.” I could hear the affection in his voice and was glad. At least Zoe had one white knight.
“Is Zoe interested in antiques, too?”
“Not professionally. She loves pretty things and is fairly knowledgeable as a layman, but she plans—oh, God, how she plans—to be an actress.” He struck a pose and grinned.
“How exciting. And is an internationally famous producer going to spot her in the supermarket, strike his forehead with a salami and sign her for the leading lady in his next play?”
“Ah, there’s the rub. Zoe wants to go to some acting school in New York next year. Dad thinks she’s too young to be cut loose in a big city and says he wants her to live at home and go to the two-year college up the Cape or go to Boston College so she can be home weekends first. Then he’ll send her to whatever acting school she wants.”
“Sounds reasonable to me.” I shrugged.
“But not to Zoe. She says by then she’ll be too old for the good parts and have to settle for the maiden aunt-type roles.”
“At twenty-one?”
Rob laughed. “Zoe does have her own schedule, and being a star by nineteen is on her calendar.”
“Okay, I can see that. What about the Maddock boy? Wasn’t he the kid who won all the state hockey prizes the last couple of years?”
I looked around at the porch. The flowerpots were all running over with water. Merrilou would have the plants floating shortly. Automatically, I lowered my voice. “If Dana and Zoe are gay, where does Harry fit in? Is he carrying a torch for one of them? Is he gay, too?”
“Neither, I’d say. I think Harry is hockey. It’s his life. He’s a good friend to both girls, but I don’t think there’s any romance—real or imagined. His problem is getting a sports scholarship, not a bedmate. And they aren’t easy to get in hockey... scholarships. I mean... it’s not as popular as football or basketball. I guess bedmates come pretty easily to any star athlete.” He grinned and bent over, picked up the battered cigarette. Held out his hand for my lighter and relit it.
“The hell with it.” He shrugged.
“Yeah, well with his reputation, you’d think any college with a hockey team would want him. I don’t know about starting a harem. Where would I find him and Dana?” I asked. “I mean, not at home. I’d like to talk to them without parents for the moment. And do you have a photo of either or all of them?”
Rob thought for a moment. “My best guess on where to find them? Mickey’s Pizza, anytime of the day or night. All the kids practically live there.” Obviously, Rob did not consider himself any longer in that age group.
“Photos, I’ll check later with Nana. Grandmothers always have those things don’t they? Look, I’d better get going now or Merrilou will be pouring water into your gas tank.”
Rob reached in and took my notebook and pen. “Here’s my cell phone number. Call any time if I can help. And could I have your e-mail address so I can send you any photos I turn up?”
He wrote the address on a note page as I recited it, and raised his voice as he tore out the page and handed back my book. “Yes, he certainly is a fine dog. You’d never know he’s really so vicious, especially around women.” He winked and walked away, cigarette dangling crookedly from his mouth. I liked his style.
Backing carefully out of the narrow, old-fashioned driveway, I started slowly back into town. The rain had become a mist, but it still was not an outdoor day. A few minutes later, I pulled over to give Mickey’s a closer look. Mickey’s Pizza had a few small tables jammed inside the building and a more numerous collection outside on the widened sidewalk. Only one or two were in use by the brave. It was not a time for Mickey’s.
Anyway, I wanted to get some information and possibilities straight in my head before I started interviewing potential suspects—if that wasn’t too strong a word. Cohorts might be a better one. Shortly I’d find out if all three kids had disappeared and if any of their families had received calls from “kidnappers.”
Just down the street from Mickey,’s I spotted a public phone that actually had a tattered directory dangling beside it, and parked nearby. I just wanted the addresses. I had no intention of phoning. It was too easy to lie or stall on a telephone. Face to face was a little harder. Both phones were listed, and because Daniel Portman’s home was nearer, that’s where I started.
I drove slowly through the open wrought iron gates, but stopped short of the house to speak with an older woman in a bright yellow raincoat who was snipping dew-covered roses and handing them to a sweatered maid who stuck them gingerly into a large vase.
I got out of the car as they stopped their activities to give me curious, but not unfriendly looks.
“Hello, I’m Alex Peres. I’m a private investigator,” I announced, showing my license. “Nothing serious, as far as I know.”
I had added the last words to assuage their obvious anxiety at my apparently alarming introduction. “Zoe Catlett didn’t come home last night. Her family is assuming she spent the night with a friend, but they’d like to make sure she didn’t fall ill or something. Knowing Dana is a friend of Zoe’s, I just thought I’d check if she were here visiting Dana, or had been here last night.”
“I’m Dana’s grandmother, Mrs. Arlen. I was already in bed when I heard Dana’s car pull around to the garage last night, and I know she came in. I heard her on the stairs. I think she was alone.”
She turned to the maid. “Greta, what about breakfast?”
The maid answered, “Miss Dana called down for breakfast in her room this morning, said she didn’t feel well. I took it up. No one else was with her, and she didn’t say anything about serving a guest in another room. And nobody strange was in the dining room before you came down, ma’am.”
Mrs. Arlen and I looked at each other and smiled at the maid’s last sentence. Mrs. Arlen pretty well ended the interview, but nicely.
“Dana is apparently here, and I guess there are no strangers in the house. I do hope Zoe is all right, she’s such a lively, fun-loving girl.”
“I imagine it’s just one of those parent/teenager mix-ups that happen sometimes,” I said. She was so pleasant I felt I should reassure her. We murmured a few more cordial words and parted. I would love to have talked with Dana, but felt the timing was bad. I was sure Grandma would have come along, and if I had asked to speak to Dana alone, all kinds of red flags would have flown.
I went down the hill, back toward town and up another small hill, stopping in front of a modest ranch house.
I rang the bell, but nobody answered. I walked around to the backyard with the thought someone might be doing yard work, but that small hope was dashed, so I retreated in good order, under the watchful eyes of a next-door neighbor.
“Hello,” I called across the fence. “I was looking for Harry Maddock. Any idea where I might find him?”
“Why would you be looking for Harry?” Her expression grew even more distrustful.
“I’m a private investigator, and a friend of Harry’s has gone missing, and—”
I was talking to her back. She vanished into her house with the slam of a door. Did she think I figured Harry for a kidnapper? Probably she just disliked PIs. I wondered what tale the first Maddock to return home would be treated to.
I waved merrily toward a window where the curtain was jiggling and pushed Fargo over into the passenger’s seat. He looked at me with such sad, big brown eyes that I said, “Okay, we’ll go to the beach.” What the hell was a little mist?
The Provincetown beaches had all kinds of weather from time to time, and I loved most of it, from cloudless hot days with the ocean sighing softly onto the beach, to days of hammer-like surf and horizontal sleet that burned if it hit your skin. Today a fog bank hovered firmly over us with no signs of burning off, and the ocean moved slowly in on oily rollers. And our only companion was the reassuring deep-throated boom from the Truro lighthouse.
The last words Zoe had uttered before being pulled away from the phone had made me curious. I thought about them as I watched Fargo tear down the beach in a sand-scattering run.
She had said that she felt awful about it. Very few kidnap victims apologize for being kidnapped... at least not until they’ve been happily and safely returned to their loved ones.
Then she started to say she was sorry about something that didn’t work out. Again, an unusual remark. Most kidnappees understandably, simply feel extremely sorry for themselves and are more likely to scream, “Get me the hell out of here!” than to apologize for being there. Of course, some of them go through real agonies of guilt, but again, that is usually when they are safely home and trying to reconcile the sad fact that every cent of the family’s assets went as ransom for their rescue, and has not been recovered.
“I’m so sorry it didn’t work...” had been her last words before she had to relinquish the phone. Funny phrasing. Was she simply going to say she was sorry it had occurred and inconvenienced everyone? Not hardly. Sorry it happened on a weekend and Dad couldn’t get the money? I doubted it. Sorry it all worked out wrong? Had Zoe in the beginning thought she had control over the plans, and now discovered she did not? A real possibility, especially if it had started as a more-or-less innocent prank, as Merrilou figured. Or knew? Now there was a thought.
I coasted into my driveway and cut the ignition before I really realized where I was. As I separated ignition key from the back door key and others, Fargo ran around the yard checking for invaders, leaving his spoor on various shrubs and rolling in the wet grass as a good excuse for a rubdown.
He got it, along with a biscuit, once we were inside. I checked the phone message machine in the little front entry hall we never used. One strident male, selling vinyl siding. One Cindy Hart, saying she was “outta here” and loved us and would call tonight. And couldn’t we even wait till she left town to start carousing? I missed her already. Suddenly the house felt dank and chill and deserted and so did I.
A little cheer seemed in order. I went back into the kitchen and popped a beer, returned to the living room and lit the fire in the fireplace. Already life was better. I sat down on the couch, accompanied by the now dry Fargo, and stared at the fire. It’s like the ocean to me. If it’s there, I have to watch it.
I thought about the kidnapping. My flip notion that Merrilou had something to do with it—or at least some knowledge of it—became more and more a possibility in my mind. Maybe she had known what time the first phone call would come and had placed herself near the phone so she could logically be the one to answer it. And we had only her word for what had been said on the other end of the line. Keeping the police out of it seemed pretty much her idea, too. Reed may have been a success in business and able to hold his own when talking to the kidnappers, but he obviously didn’t want a confrontation with his wife. I’ll bet the family would have convinced him to involve the cops in a hurry if she hadn’t been there, insisting that a call to the police would be embarrassing to Zoe’s friends, would cause Reed publicity his business image didn’t need and would humiliate the entire family, especially if it had anything to do with Zoe’s lesbianism. Somehow, I had the idea that Reed Catlett was not the sturdiest tree in the forest when it came to emotional stability. If Merrilou used sex as a weapon, he had already lost that battle. I wondered how long it would take him to find comfort elsewhere.
Logically, I had no idea why Merrilou would want Zoe kidnapped. Surely, there must be simpler ways of getting her out of the house if Merrilou couldn’t stand living with such a sinner. Hell, Zoe was considering living with her grandmother, anyway. Although Merrilou might not know that. And, obviously, there was that million dollars if it ever got that far. Merrilou and some number of other people could be richer. But, to me, that seemed a dangerous route. The kidnappers might well decide they had done all the work, taken all the risks—and deserved all the money. Merrilou could hardly sue them for breach of contract. On the other hand, if they were caught, certainly they wouldn’t hesitate a heartbeat to rat on her as their employer in hopes of a softer deal from the prosecutor.
My bottom line thought was that Merrilou was better off leaving things as they were and hoping Reed succumbed to an early death. Preferably natural.
Another question mark in my mental Merrilou file was her relationship with the Reverend Lawrence Bartles and his too-good-for-words wife, Emily. Bartles had a little storefront evangelical church over off Shank Painter Road. The property included the “church” plus the rambling house they lived in and a fair-sized barn. He and his wife specialized in helping runaway or homeless teenagers.
The girls stayed in the house with the Bartles. The boys lived dormitory style in the barn. The Bartles fed them and tried to reconcile the runaways with their families, tried to help the others get at least a high school education equivalent and a permanent job and to get—or keep—them off drugs and booze. I had initially had some serious doubts as to whether Larry and/or Emily had more than a religious interest in these kids, but apparently, all was on the up and up.
Larry was a little easier going than his wife. His theory was to take care of the kids’ physical and emotional health first, that their souls would follow along later. Emily was rather more Middle Ages in approach. She would have demanded chastity, poverty and obedience before you got your first bowl of oatmeal.
Larry and I had been involved in a murder case last year. The beginning of our acquaintance had been stormy at best, and while we both still knew we were on opposite sides of many fences, we eventually realized we rather liked each other. I trusted him, to a degree. And he decided I did not have cloven hooves. I barely knew Emily and saw no reason to change that.
My mother, who contributed to their ever-needy larder, said Emily was “about what you would expect.” My Aunt Mae said she was “sometimes difficult, but rather sweet, in her way.” Of course, Aunt Mae would have considered Genghis Kahn rather sweet, in his way. I wondered idly if Emily’s sweetness included starving young kidnapped gays into lifelong repentance. And I imagined even a small part of a million dollar ransom would look awfully big to Emily.
Thoughts of starving reminded me that it was nearly dinnertime, and I had had little breakfast and no lunch. The rain was with us again, and I decided to let the food come to me in my nice dry house. I called the Chinese restaurant and ordered too much of too many things as usual. No harm. There was always tomorrow’s lunch.
Just as Fargo and I were polishing off an egg roll we didn’t need, and Wells was playing mighty hunter with a shrimp, the phone rang. I said, “Hello,” and a voice, obviously disguised came over the line.
“Hallo, is thees the Peres House of Ill Ree-pute for bee-oo-tiful womans?”
“Yes, it is.” I was grinning now. “And I can tell just from your voice that we will hire you in an instant. Can you start work tonight? Of course, you realize that as the owner I have to check you out, as it were.”
“Ah, no.” I think I had her rattled now. “I cannot start until Tuesday, but, bebe, it vill be worth zee wait!” What the hell kind of accent was this supposed to be?
“Sorry, honey, if you can’t get here tonight, I’ll just have to hire this other gorgeous girl who’s waiting outside.”
“Well, if you’ve got the same weather we have, your other girl just drowned.” Now the voice was wonderfully familiar.
“We do have a downpour working.” I laughed. “But maybe drowning is better than having you stomp her to death with your stiletto heels. Hello, darling. I take it you arrived safely.”
We settled down and chatted for half an hour, telling each other about our day’s events.
Mine, I assure you, were more interesting.
Chapter 5
Saturdays seem to have a different feel to them, even though I don’t work a standard Monday-to-Friday schedule. Fargo, Wells and I slept late, warm and cozy against the sudden autumn chill. I decided to have coffee before dressing and went for the heavier robe and slippers.
Fargo had just come in with the weather report: the grass was still wet up to his ankles, but the rain had stopped. I poured my first cup of special Blue Mountain coffee on that good news... and the phone rang.
It was Rob Catlett with photo information. I had to credit him. He got things done promptly. “Anything new going on?” I asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “No phone calls, and the five of us hung around all evening. It was like we were all watching each other. Nana doesn’t trust Merrilou. Merrilou doesn’t trust her. Dad doesn’t trust me or Marvin. I don’t trust Merrilou or Dad. And Marvin doesn’t trust anybody. Aside from that, we are one close-knit family, warmly united by our troubles.” He laughed, but he didn’t mean it.
“Why don’t you trust your father?” I sipped the coffee and lit the first of the five allowed cigarettes. Should I exceed that number, and I probably would, the way things are going, I’d give my wrist a good slap.
“I’m not sure. He seems to be... different than he used to be. He was always sort of remote, even before Mom died. But you had the feeling that in there somewhere, he loved you. After he married Merrilou, he still really didn’t change, until this damn kidnap. For example, even before Zoe said she was a lesbian, Merrilou had been talking about this girls’ school somewhere down south, run by the evangelicals. About how they teach premarital chastity, how you should always obey your parents and how later you’re supposed to obey your husband that your parents picked, and have a lot of babies that you nurse. Sounds more like raising a cow than a girl. Anyway, Dad just laughed and said Zoe would have the girls into mutiny and the faculty into cardiac arrest within a week. Hold on a minute.” I heard him say something in a low voice, and then the sound of a door closing.
“Just Marvin,” Rob explained. “Anyway, Merrilou started in on this school again last night, and Dad said he’d think about it, maybe they’d go down and take a look at it. Nana said it would be a big mistake for Zoe. Dad snapped that it was his decision, and his alone. He never snaps at Nana. Marvin slammed out of the room—yelling shit! I was glaring at Dad, and Merrilou was licking cream off her whiskers. It’s turning into the weekend from hell around here.”
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